


My Sister, Charlie

by FuzzyBlueStockings



Category: Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Genre: 1940s, Aging, Alternative Perspective, Books, California, Character Death, Children, Coming of Age, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Family, Fear, Feminist Themes, Gen, Guilt, Hitchcock, Investigations, Jewelry, LGBTQ Character, Literature, Loneliness, Loss of Innocence, Marriage, Murder, Murder Mystery, Muteness, Mystery, Nightmares, Parent-Child Relationship, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon, San Francisco, Self-Acceptance, Serial Killers, Sibling Rivalry, Sister-Sister Relationship, Small Towns, Suburbia, Suspense, Trains, Trauma, Trust, Uncle-Niece Relationship, Vietnam War, Widowed, World War II, conformity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-10-11 10:45:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10463100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuzzyBlueStockings/pseuds/FuzzyBlueStockings
Summary: Ann Newton has so much on her mind. Innumerable things...Maybe Charlie wasn't the only person who suspected that her uncle had a secret. After all, there was also Ann, an eleven-year-old bookworm and smartaleck-in-training. She may have possessed far more precocity than wisdom, but she knew there was something amiss about Uncle Charlie. She just couldn't figure out what it was. And by the time she did, he'd already sprung into action. The consequences would outlive him.





	1. Chapter 1

The main thing to know about Charlotte Cecilia Newton is that she’s the world’s biggest stinker.

Yes, yes, that’s a lie. Anyone who’s met her could tell you so. But when I was eleven years old, just before Uncle Charlie came to town, I believed it with every fiber of my diminutive being. Even if I knew it couldn’t be true, either.

I mean, you try growing up next to _that_. Long-limbed frame, porcelain-fine features, Pepsodent-ad smiles. I know it’s not nice to say things like this about your sister, but I just about _hated_ her. There may have been two daughters in the Newton household, but there was only one favorite—Charlie.

Favorite daughter. Favorite neighbor. Favorite classmate. Favorite niece. Next to that, a short, poky lump of a kid like me didn’t stand a chance.

It might have been bearable if Charlie had also been two-faced, if she had possessed some secret wellspring of malice. But no. She was utterly without vice. Angelic, inside and out. She had that mixture of sweetness and substance that comes naturally to very few. Certainly not to me. She even had the galling knack for knowing exactly what to say in any situation.

“Everything all right?” I’d been watching her put on makeup, and through the mirror she’d noticed me sulking.

I took off the wire frames that I’d been fitted for the previous week and sighed.

“Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses," I said, parroting Dorothy Parker.

Charlie turned around and laughed.

“Oh, you’ve got plenty of time for that, Ann. And the boys who matter don’t care so much.” She reached out and held one of my braids between two infuriatingly exquisite fingers. “Besides, gentlemen prefer blondes, so for you it evens out.”

Always knew what to say. The rat.

“Can I borrow your curlers?” I asked, sensing a small opportunity.

“You know you’re too young for that.”

The dirty rat.

And even when she was unhappy, she took to her bed with a willowy grace that still brought out the green-eyed monster in me. It happened when she found out she wasn’t going to college after all. Tommy Whittier, the captain of the football team, had gotten the local Rotary Club scholarship, even though she’d gotten better marks. Strange, though, that she told me the reason why she’d been feeling glum and not Mother or Pop.

Or, thinking back, maybe not so strange. Even at that age, I was becoming aware that Mother and Pop existed in their own little closed-off worlds. A mood of dissatisfaction had settled into our shambolic old house, though we made sure to smile for the neighbors. And though Charlie was beloved by all, the source of her distress was deemed no more important than anyone else’s.

Charlie claimed that it was just as well, that there was no point in becoming an insufferable egghead only to come back and become a salesman's wife or something like that—the kind of fate to which even the brightest of Santa Rosa's girls seemed to resign themselves. Then again, maybe that’s what she felt she had to tell herself. And, let’s be honest, it wasn’t the most convincing story.

So where did that leave me? Up the creek without a paddle, naturally. But I had a plan.

I had no hope of beating Charlie in the looks department. But I was going to be smarter. Much smarter. Yes, _I_ was going to be that insufferable egghead.

It was a tall order, of course. She had graduated first in her class, a fact of which no one hesitated to remind me.

“You have big shoes to fill,” warned Miss Vance, my fifth-grade teacher.

But by golly, _I_ was going to fill them.

I was going to read just about every book I could get my hands on. Charlie had been praised for reading twenty-five books the summer before she started junior high school. Well then, I thought. I’ll read fifty. And no dime-novel junk, either. Dickens. Walter Scott. Dostoevsky. That’ll show her.

That might be one reason why it took me so long to realize the truth about Uncle Charlie. I'd always kept my nose in a book, puzzling over words, phrases, and subtleties of expression that, at that age, I couldn't hope to decipher. More to the point, Uncle Charlie had fooled almost everyone in our town, and while I considered myself sharper than most of them, I was still only eleven.

But I can tell you, I thought he was peculiar from Day One. I only wish I could have picked up on more than that. Maybe I could have saved my sister from what happened to her that summer. Or—or maybe I'm kidding myself.


	2. Chapter 2

When Uncle Charlie arrived in Santa Rosa, I had reached page 271 of _Ivanhoe_.

Let’s see. Was there any connection in my mind? Did I think of Charles Oakley as a wandering knight, his arrival a herald of restoration? No, I didn’t. In fact, the idea only comes to mind now with a sort of queasy irony.

I mean, I’d never fallen under his spell the way my sister did. She'd gone practically gooey-eyed over him. It had occurred to me to ask Roger if he also thought she had the hots for him, but I stopped myself. My brother was a born tattletale, you see, and if Mother had ever caught wind of that remark she’d have washed my mouth out with soap for sure. I wasn’t about to go through _that_ again.

And honestly, just the novelty of having Uncle Charlie around suited me fine. There was an extra person at the table, one keen to tell stories about faraway people and places—like a crusading knight back from the Orient, come to think of it. But it was the way he spoke that threw me a little. Not what he said, exactly. He echoed Mother’s oft-repeated complaints about how the world just wasn’t the same anymore, but he spoke with a different cadence. A flinty edge. As if he sensed there were wolves after him.

“Uncle Charlie talks funny, doesn’t he?” I observed as my sister and I got ready for bed. We were sharing my room to make room for him.

“He’s a sophisticate,” Charlie responded with an air of authority. “You’ll find people like that back East, if you’re in the right crowd. Uncle Charlie has lots of friends on Chestnut Hill. Goes to the symphony with them and everything.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me so,” she said.

Now, something wasn’t right there. I was sure of that. Uncle Charlie was no sophisticate. If he was, I’d determined, he’d have known more about people. He’d have known that, for instance, making a silly old dollhouse out of newspaper was never going to impress me. I was eleven, after all, not five. And though I only knew about the upper classes through books, it seemed pretty clear to me that someone who wanted to fit in with them would have more of an easygoing way about himself. Or at least he’d pretend to. He wouldn’t let himself get so jumpy and temperamental.

Three nights later came the revelation—or what I thought was a revelation. My sister was doing the dishes after dinner, and Mother made me go help her. Five minutes into wiping, I noticed something wrapped in tissue paper on the counter.

“What’s this?”

Charlie smiled. “My present from Uncle Charlie.”

A gold ring. And all I got was a dinky stuffed elephant. It figured.

“Can I look at it?”

“All right, but be careful. That’s a real emerald in there.”

I untied the tissue paper and held it up to the light.

“Say, wait a minute! It’s got someone’s initials in it.”

Charlie flipped around. “Now Ann—“

“—and they’re not yours. Or Uncle Charlie’s.”

“Ann, put that down,” she commanded.

I did, but I was not about to let the subject go.

“Now how do you suppose—“

“He said the jeweler cheated him.”

“Really? You’d think he’d have noticed something like that.”

“Well he didn’t,” she snapped. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Gee, Charlie, you don’t have to get sore.”

“I’m not,” she said, without any real conviction.

Then it came to me.

“Holy smoke!” I exclaimed.

“What?”

I nearly leapt upon her in excitement. “That’s it! Uncle Charlie’s a jewel thief.”

She quickly shushed me.

“But it all makes sense!” I whispered. “All those society people he knows. He got in good with them so he could sneak into their rooms and steal their jewelry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ann.”

“Why Charlie, don’t you see? It explains everything!”

But my sister scowled and would hear no more about it. She knew as well as I did that something wasn’t right with Uncle Charlie. But at least then—and at least in my mind—he was still her idol. And I was convinced that I had the answer, so our conversation came to an abrupt end.

A jewel thief in the family. I couldn’t get over it. I was on the wrong track, to be sure, but it was still a thrill ride. To think that we had a real-life Arsene Lupin in our midst! Or even, maybe, a Robin Hood, one duty-bound to humble the rich by stripping them of their symbols of power and grandeur. It tickled me to death.

Was I, too, willfully blind? Did I ignore evidence that suggested Uncle Charlie was something worse? Probably. Regrettably. But consider this: How willing is anyone to recognize a truth as dark as that—that one shares one’s blood with a remorseless killer? That fact would make itself known, soon enough. But at that moment, I was wrapped up in a fantasy and could not see beyond it. I went to bed smiling that night.


	3. Chapter 3

Ten days into Uncle Charlie’s visit, I had reached Page 450 of _The Brothers Karamazov_.

Now, I have to admit, I was tearing through it with little regard for detail. In fact, when I re-read it in my 20s, I soon began to realize that I couldn’t recall a thing.

Perhaps this was because my thoughts were elsewhere. Our house, you see, was no longer our sedate little house, but a hotbed of intrigue. Now that I was convinced that Uncle Charlie was secretly a master jewel thief, I studied his every move. And I watched as those two flatfoots—survey-takers, my eye!—kept tabs on him. I tell you, it was better than a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Whether he was in the house or strolling about town, he always stayed one step ahead of them. I was riveted. I only wished I'd had popcorn.

I tried to picture the scene of the crime. Macy’s? Tiffany’s? A museum? No, that would have been in the papers. But anything smaller, I reckoned, and he couldn’t have been followed across state lines. Or maybe those detectives were P.I.s? Yes, that was it, I thought. He stole from one of those filthy-rich families back East, and they hired a pair of private dicks to track him down.

Of course, none of this was plausible. Not in the least. I’m well aware of that now. Even my father, an avid reader of detective novels, could have set me straight right away. But I couldn’t help it. Nonstop fantasies of Uncle Charlie’s exploits were swimming and spawning in my head. There was no putting them to rest.

I so badly wanted to pummel him with questions. To ask him how to pick locks; how to tell silver from steel. But I struggled to get his attention. To my dismay—but hardly my surprise—he remained fixated on my sister. Looking back on it now, it turns my stomach. But at that age, I wasn’t aware of all the sordid implications of that strange charge that ran between them. It was unspeakable, and so unspoken. I thus reacted with my usual middle-child mix of quiet exasperation and envy.

More than the usual amount, actually. It became an obsession. It even produced this funny little scenario:

“Let’s go, Ann. We haven’t got all night.”

Uncle Charlie’s face was half-hidden by shadows, his voice an urgent whisper. I was wearing a black-and-white striped shirt and black trousers. Upon hearing him, I scrambled to my feet and finished getting ready. I slid on a pair of leather boots, then grabbed a pair of gloves from my dresser drawer.

“Do you have a mask?” I asked him.

He took one out of his pocket and tied the strings behind my head. I looked up at him in awe. There was something sanctifying about the gesture—like he was initiating me into some sort of elite secret society.

“Where are we going?”

“San Francisco.”

“But where in San Francisco?”

“Don’t ask questions!”

We got in the car and sped off. In no time at all, we were there. The Mint. It towered over me. A huge, sleek, resplendent citadel of a place. The moon cast a tantalizing glimmer over its white marble surface.

“Golly!”

“Pipe down, will you?” he snapped.

We edged closer. Finally, when we were about to duck under the gate:

“Here I am, Uncle Charlie!” chirped a familiar voice.

He threw up his hands. “What took you so long? You sure left me in a spot. I thought I was going to have to take Ann here.”

Oh no.

“Oh, Uncle Charlie,” my sister replied, batting her eyes. “You didn’t think I’d miss the big heist, did you?”

My eyes darted between them.

“But Uncle Charlie—“ I sputtered.

“Now look,” he said impatiently. “Did you really think YOU were my first choice? You know how it goes.”

He turned to my sister.

“Come, my dear.”

Charlie smiled, radiating enough smug glee to send me into a desperate frenzy.

“No!” I screamed. “No! No! No! NO!”

Those screams, as it happened, were real ones, loud and forceful enough to wake me from that nightmare.

But first, I discovered, they had woken up my sister.

“Ann!” I felt her shaking me. “Ann, wake up! Speak to me! Are you all right?”

My eyes fluttered open. All I could see of her was a blur illuminated to a dim purple by the porch light below. I shook my head.

“Yes, I’m all right. I had a bad dream, that’s all.”

“A bad dream?”

“Yes,” I said as I sat up and put on my glasses. When I did, the sight of her face, in all its haunted, fragile translucence, startled me. This was not self-satisfied Dream Charlie. I had never seen her so terrified.

“Did it—“ she stammered. “Did it have anything to do with—“

“With what?”

“Oh, Ann!” She covered her mouth and began crying.

There was no way I could tell her what it had really been about, so I did some quick thinking.

“I—I dreamt there was an earthquake.” I said.

“An earthquake?”

“Yes.”

Her hand fell down to her side. She shut her eyes and exhaled.

“You know we haven’t had a bad one in years.”

“I know.”

“Not since Mother was a little girl.”

“I know. But they still scare me.” I said, perhaps a little defensively.

She sat down and put her arm across my shoulder. “Well, you remember what they taught you at school, don’t you?”

“Sure.” I rolled my eyes before reciting the rhyme. “Away from windows, ‘way from shelves, that’s how we—“

“—protect ourselves,” Charlie chimed in. “Good girl.” She gave me a quick, protective little hug and got up. But it was clear her thoughts were elsewhere.

“Say, are _you_ all right?”

“Me?” She turned around and let out a forced little laugh. “Why, of course! It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Well, don’t be,” I sniffed. “Everybody has dreams. If you kept up with the latest literature, you'd know that they're merely manifestations of the underlying narratives within the unconscious mind.”

I fancied myself a miniature Jungian, you see. My sister seemed unimpressed.

“Anyway, I’m going back to bed.” I removed my glasses and thrust my head back onto the pillow.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

She lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. I was having trouble sleeping, too. Charlie usually wasn’t the reactive type. What had so unnerved her? My dream? But it was silly. Even I knew that.

After a few minutes, I spoke up once more.

"Charlie,"

“Yes?”

“Did you find the recipe?”

“What?” She turned to me.

“The recipe! At the library. Did you find it?”

A pause.

“Yes, Ann. I found it.”

There was a crack in her voice. A meaningful one, though I did not know it yet.


	4. Chapter 4

By the middle of the next day, I was 53 pages into _Lady Chatterley’s Lover_. Good heavens—how in the world did I get my hands on _that_ ? For the life of me, I can’t remember.

I was starting to think that maybe Uncle Charlie wasn’t a jewel thief after all. He was always fidgeting with his hands, and not in a way that revealed any special dexterity. I also began to suspect that his secret had little to do with the glorious adventures that had played out in my imagination. Sometimes he could be impish and playful—at other times, just plain nasty. So much so that I asked not to be seated next to him at the dinner table. Mother tried to insist that I remain in my place, but I found an unexpected ally in my sister. And over the dinner table, I got a hint as to why.

“You see them in the hotels,” said Uncle Charlie, staring at no one in particular. “Every day by the thousands, drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money. Proud of their jewelry but of nothing else. Horrible, faded, fat, greedy women.”

“They're alive. They're human beings,” replied my sister, her voice rising with alarm.

He turned to her. “Are they?”

Sheesh, I thought. What’s he got against old ladies? Even if one or two local specimens had occasionally pinched my cheeks to the point of bruising, they'd meant no harm.

Strange as it may seem, though, I wasn’t all that disturbed by that little exchange. From the looks of it, neither was anyone else at the table, except for Charlie. Mother even laughed it off. Our uncle seemed prone to long, digressive speeches, you see. Also to winding people up, especially his earnest young namesake. So while I was keeping him at arm’s length, I didn’t think too much of it.

Actually, looking back, I’m kind of glad things ended the way they did. Not that what happened pleased me. Not that I relished the look on my mother’s face when they recovered the body of her baby brother. No, not at all.

But if things had turned out differently—if Uncle Charlie had been caught and tried for murder—I might have been called to the witness stand. And I suspect that I would have had to answer some mighty tricky questions on cross-examination.

“You say you avoided your uncle,” I can hear the lawyer say.

“Yes, sir.”

“But then, later that night, you trusted him enough to let him give you a piggyback ride?”

“Well, I—” I would stammer.

“And he tucked you into bed, too, didn’t he? Oh, come now. How do you expect us to believe you?”

Sir, you must understand. Please try to understand.

I was wary of him, sure. I knew he was hiding something. But I wasn’t fearing for my life or my safety. Not really. If for no other reason, then because he barely seemed to notice me. No one did. Mother and Pop only seemed to talk to me via the occasional reprimand. Charlie too, for the most part. I didn’t have many friends at school—they must have thought I was putting on airs because I was always reading. And Roger was, well, Roger.

I would have rather died than admit it, but I was starved for attention. And that night, if nothing else, I got it.

During dinner, our neighbor Herb came over, and he and Pop indulged in their usual how-I-would-kill-you-and-get-away-with-it pleasantries. Under normal circumstances, my sister would have simply rolled her eyes and cleared away the dishes, but that night was different. Uncle Charlie really had gotten to her. She screamed and then ran out. He went after her.

Less than an hour later, I heard them outside, though I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I turned back to my book.

Uncle Charlie came in. Said my sister was going for a walk. Then he looked at me, about to nod off to _Lady Chatterley_ , of all things. (I mean it: Mother and Pop were singularly oblivious parents.)

My uncle’s face sprouted a crooked smile. With one swift lunge, he saddled me onto his back and began lumbering upstairs.

“Upsie-daisy. Now, off to bed you go!”

So help me, it was bliss. I giggled and squealed like a girl half my age. I was a self-possessed little thing most of the time, but the childlike abandon with which Uncle Charlie hurtled me upstairs brought out the same in me.

He deposited me onto my bed and removed my book from his coat pocket. Then he noticed the title.

“Why, you little fiend!”

My eyes grew wide.

“Oh Uncle Charlie, please don’t tell!”

He smiled. “Well, I won't on one condition: that you promise you'll never treat it like a user’s manual.”

I laughed. “Of course not.”

“You promise?”

“Sure, I promise!”

Then I blushed.

“Not like I could anyway. I’m too short and stout and plain.”

Uncle Charlie looked at me with exaggerated surprise. “Says who?”

“Oh, everybody,” I shrugged. “You’ve heard what Mother calls me. Her ‘little dumpling.’ I guess that’s all I’ll ever be.”

“Now look here,” he replied as he sat on the edge of my bed. “You’re nothing of the sort. And anyway, you’re far too young to be thinking like that. Why, you haven’t started growing yet!”

“Some of the girls in my class have. Sally Stevens is already five-foot six.”

“Some start later than others,” he said.

“Not me.”

“Oh, nonsense!”

He took my chin in his hand.

“You know, I can just picture you all grown up. Clear as day. A tall, leggy blonde with long curls rippling down your back. Yes sir, a regular Veronica Lake.”

I shot upright. Oh, how did he know? How did he know that she was my absolute idol? I wouldn’t have dared to think such a thing.

“You mean it?” I exclaimed.

He grinned. “Why, sure! And you’ll have all the boys in town panting for you.”

I covered my mouth and giggled. The idea!

He stroked my head.

“But you’re going to be a good girl. You’ll wait ‘til you find the one boy who really falls in love with you. And you two will marry and you’ll spend the rest of your life with him. Happily ever after. Like they say.”

“If you say so, Uncle Charlie,” I smiled and yawned.

He leaned in as I nestled into my pillow. I thought he was going to kiss my forehead and so closed my eyes in expectation.

He didn’t. Instead, he settled toward my left ear and whispered:

“But you must make sure you go before he does, darling. Make sure of that. Nobody likes a useless old woman.”

I turned toward him.

“What?”

His face had hardened. “There are painless ways to do it. But you'd be doing the world a favor.”

I, too, went rigid. I almost couldn’t speak.

“U—Uncle Charlie, what are you talking about?”

He lurched back and smiled again—an incredulous smile, as if he were surprised that anyone could be taken aback at what he’d just said.

“Why Ann, can’t you take a joke?”

I blinked. “A joke?” My voice had turned small and cracked.

“Sure! That’s the trouble with this family. Everyone's lost their sense of humor.”

He made his way toward the door. I felt an unexpected sob coming on but managed to tamp it down deep.

“Oh Ann?”

“Yes?” I forced myself to look at him.

“Of course, you'll keep this conversation between us. It’ll be our little secret.”

Our little secret. Are there three more revolting words in the English language?

He tapped my copy of _Lady Chatterley_.

“Like your, uh, reading material here. Okay? Remember, now. Our little secret.”

He left.

In a flash, I grabbed the book and stuffed it under my mattress. Then I turned out the light and got into bed.

But there would be no sleep that night. Not even after Charlie had turned in. Every time I tried, a menacing internal drumbeat jarred me awake again.

He'd meant it. He'd really meant it. To Uncle Charlie, any female not fit to look at or be of use to a man was not fit to live. Even his own flesh and blood. Even me.

And during that confused, unhappy night, some crucial facts crystallized in my mind:

Uncle Charlie had done something back East. And it was not a jewel robbery.

Uncle Charlie was no Robin Hood, nor anything half as righteous.

Uncle Charlie seemed to place a very small value on human life.

There was something wrong with Uncle Charlie. Something seriously wrong.

A few years ago, after hearing that story for the first time and seeing how it affected me, my partner hesitantly asked me if he had “tried anything.” No. As horrible as my uncle turned out to be, he was no pervert. He hadn’t violated me; only my trust.

I suppose I should be grateful for that. But even to have your trust violated at that age is no small thing. That night, I felt a hefty chunk of my innocence break off and bob away in the waves, out of sight.

Because I had been innocent. Oh, sure, to me all the grown-ups I’d known were fools. Every last one of them. They could even be snappish and cruel at times, when pushed to the limit. But I’d always presumed they’d had my best interest at heart—or, at least, what they thought was my best interest.

And I’d heard rumors about the outliers. The flim-flam men. The dope peddlers. The Peeping Toms. But somehow no one had thought to warn me about men like my uncle. That such bewilderingly stark malice existed in the world was something I had to find out on my own.

I wish I’d been given a happier Song of Experience. I wish my sister had, too.


	5. Chapter 5

Shortly before the night of Uncle Charlie’s lecture for the Women’s Club, I had moved on to another book, _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. But a few pages in, I put it down. I hope by now I don’t need to explain why.

I tried to keep an eye on him, but I couldn’t be everywhere he was. Especially not after Mother ordered me to stop pestering him. (I didn’t. Not completely. I just exercised a little more caution.)

Also, I admit, I had gotten sidetracked. In what I thought was an enormously amusing turn of events, I saw that Charlie had gained a not-so-secret admirer. Detective Graham never stated it outright—the elaborate dances grownups would perform to avoid speaking their minds never ceased to amaze me—but it was hard not to notice. A few days before, he had cornered me after church to ask after Charlie. I gave it to him straight: If he wanted to marry her, he should just say so, because I was sure Mother and Pop wouldn’t mind. I just about managed to keep a straight face as his flushed to near-purple and he changed the subject. A smooth operator, that Graham fellow.

Thus as we were getting ready to leave for the lecture, I’d had a lot on my mind. _Innumerable_ things, as I once liked to say. I wish I could have focused more on what mattered. I wish I could have kept my focus on Uncle Charlie.

I didn’t. And as he strutted around the living room, making facile chitchat and stopping only to close the window and turn up the radio, I don’t remember what I was thinking. Certainly not anything remotely predictive of this:

“Help, everybody!" our neighbor Herb shouted from the porch. "Somebody’s caught in the garage.”

We all bolted out of the house. Uncle Charlie rushed over and dragged open the door. Herb pulled out my sister’s limp body before our uncle commandeered it. We gathered around as he set her onto the grass.

There she was. Eyes closed, aristocratic nose pointed skyward, body resting in a slight, tapered rondure. She reminded me of the Christian martyrs I’d seen in old paintings, the stained-glass luminosity of their skin all but announcing their heavenly predestination.

And at that moment, I had a ghastly thought: Of course. Of course it would be like this. Of course she would look pristine and flawless, even in death.

I toppled over her gracelessly, crying out her name in desperation. Mother, though on the edge of hysteria herself, pulled me off.

And then Charlie stirred.

I felt my breath escape me and dissipate into the night air. I still had a sister. I’m not a big believer in miracles, but if that’s what brought her back, I’ll take it.

She opened her eyes. No sputtering. No coughing. Just a wide-open stare and some choice words for Uncle Charlie: “Go away.”

“She wants you, Emmy,” he said to our mother, attempting to draw attention away from Charlie’s quiet but distinct repudiation.

She insisted that we go to the lecture anyway, without her. In the car, Mother wondered aloud about the series of mishaps that had been afflicting her beloved eldest—first the stairs, which had given way under Charlie’s feet two days before, and now the garage.

I confess I was also in the dark somewhat. If there was one person who should have been immune to Uncle Charlie's darkest impulses, I thought, it was his favorite niece. He still adored her, or at least appeared to. He’d worked calmly and methodically to revive her. Perhaps what happened was simply a matter of coincidence? Some newfound clumsiness? No, it couldn’t be that.

It was only as Uncle Charlie stood at the podium, extolling the virtues of small-town life and the bonds of trust forged therein, that it dawned on me: She must know. She must know what he was hiding from us.

But I soon found myself confounded yet again. For when we were back at the house and it came time for Uncle Charlie’s toast, he hesitated, looked at my sister, and then announced that he was leaving.

For our mother, this was nothing less than a catastrophe. Her affection for her brother may have proven misplaced, but that didn't make it any less genuine. It was as if she were losing a part of herself, she said. There was so little to look forward to now. She began weeping.

As the assembled guests tried to mask their pity, I pondered my mother's plight. Maybe, in the long run, marriage was actually so dismal a prospect that they had to entice women with flowers and dresses and a great big ceremony. Maybe that was the only way they’d go through with it.

The guests dispersed and we helped Mother clean up. Charlie went to bed. And when I was ready to turn in, I bumped into Uncle Charlie in the hallway.

“Oh! excuse me.”

“What’s that?” I asked, indicating the glass he was holding.

“Oh, this? Just some bicarbonate for Charlie,” he replied with a bland smile. “What happened earlier, you see, a spell like that can play havoc on a person’s stomach.”

“Can it?” I said, feigning a look of innocent curiosity.

“Certainly,” he said as he tried to push past me.

I grabbed the glass out of his hand.

“I’ll bring it in. Charlie’s probably falling asleep by now.”

I yawned.

“And I think I’m down for the count, too.”

“Why, you—“ my uncle stopped. The briefest flash of rage colored his face before it lapsed into forced geniality. “All right. Just as you say. Good night, Young Miss Ann.”

“Good night,” I said, giving what I thought was a regal little nod.

I entered and shut the door behind me. As my sister reawakened, I bit my lip and eyed the glass.

Then, in what oddly enough might have been the most elegant maneuver I had ever performed, I took two steps, crossed my right foot behind my left, and flung myself onto the floor. The contents of the glass effervesced their way into the carpet.

“Oh, Ann!” Charlie exclaimed as she leapt up. "For heaven's sake!”

“I’m sorry. I tripped. It was an accident.”

“How many times has Mother told you to be careful?” she moaned. We grabbed some rags and began cleaning up the spill.

I kept my eyes on the floor as I scrubbed.

“Uncle Charlie fixed it.”

“What?” She looked up.

“I said Uncle Charlie fixed you that bicarbonate.”

Charlie froze, searching my eyes for a spark of understanding but then deciding she didn’t want to find it.

“He’s leaving tomorrow, Ann,” she said, looking down again. “You heard him.”

“Yes, I know,” I replied.

We went to the bathroom to wring out the rags.

“Mother seems pretty broken up over it, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she does,” Charlie replied. “Poor Mother.”

“But to tell you the truth,” I said, “I think I’m going to be happy when he’s gone.”

Charlie turned to me.

“Why?” Her expression was tense.

I shrugged.

“Well, then I’ll have my own room back,” I said, throwing my nose in the air as I walked past her. “I don’t wish to offend you, Sister Dear, but a girl does appreciate some privacy, you know.”

“Of course,” she said, with palpable relief. “Well, we’d better get to bed. His train leaves early tomorrow.”

I wonder what would have happened if I had put a stop to her nervous prevarications. Would it have changed anything? And was there really any way to just go up to her and say it? “Charlie, is our uncle trying to kill you?”

I still don’t know. I was not a shy kid—I usually harbored no qualms about asking anybody anything. But that was one question I kept to myself. It would be answered in fairly short order, anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

On the way to the station, I decided that I would go to the library afterward to check out _A Farewell to Arms_. I didn’t know what it was about. But Miss Corcoran—the town's librarian and, to me, the only grownup around who really knew anything about anything—had recommended Hemingway to me. And I guess it seemed fitting to make this a day of farewells.

When we reached the station, we were greeted by a send-off committee. One by one, each of the local officials thanked Uncle Charlie for his donation to our town's hospital and gave him a vigorous handshake. He jokingly removed his limp hand and clutched it.

"Watch out, folks, or you'll need to check me in next." Everyone laughed.

It’s funny, but that little scene set off one last internal flicker of doubt. Had I been mistaken? Were all those warning signs a product of my all-too-active imagination? My uncle certainly had a dark side, but, well, didn’t everyone?

Thus when Uncle Charlie invited us to look at his sleeper compartment, I shrugged and followed Roger, Charlie, and our mother's friend Mrs. Potter onto the train. Evil or benign, at least he would be gone. In a matter of minutes, it wouldn’t matter.

Still, I was anxious to get off before the train started moving. My feet hit the ground a split second before it lurched into motion.

I straightened out my skirt and wiped the steam from my eyeglasses. Then I looked around.

“Charlie?”

A mantilla of black smoke settled down. I looked up toward the flurry of passing windows.

“CHARLIE?”

I dashed back to my parents.

“Mother! Mother! Charlie’s still on the train! She’s still on the train! She's still on the train!”

She put a hand on her forehead.

“Oh, gracious!” she said before shepherding us away from the tracks. “Come, now. Get in the car, all of you.”

As we drove south, the darkest of dark thoughts began to claw their way into my head. I knew nothing good could come of this. My sister was nothing if not conscientious. She would never have stayed on by accident. Something—someone—had forced her to stay. Oh, forget “someone.” I knew who. All of a sudden, the air in the car felt asphyxiatingly stale.

“Ann, what’s wrong?” Pop asked.

“That train, I—“ I couldn’t finish.

He turned to face me from the front seat. “Oh, come now, Ann. It's only a little trip down to Petaluma, that’s all. And Charlie’ll know to get off there, right Emmy?”

“Dear, don’t talk to me while I’m driving,” Mother said.

“She’s just sore,” said Roger.

“I am not!” I protested.

“Are, too,” he countered in a grating singsong. “You’re just sore ‘cuz you can't go to the library.”

Oh, that stupid brother of mine. No. Stupid me. Stupid me for not dragging Charlie off that train. I could have prevented this. Uncle Charlie had revealed his true nature to me and I didn’t do a thing about it. So help me, I began to get hysterical. But Mother and Pop’s raised voices drowned me out.

“Have we got enough gas, Em?”

“Joe, for heaven’s sake, I’ve told you not to distract me!”

“It’s only a simple question, Emmy—“

“I’ve just about had it with—“

“It’s a perfectly reasonable—“

“Stop it, Joe. Just stop it!”

Hot tears ran down my face. Between that and the racket of their bickering, I didn’t know how I was ever going to make it to Petaluma.

We didn’t. Not five miles out, a policeman pulled us over. There’d been an accident. A passenger had fallen into the path of an oncoming freight train, and they were closing the crossroad ahead. Mother turned the car back and drove like mad. We didn’t have far to go before we saw it.

Two stopped trains. A horde of cops and yard bulls. A few gawkers poking their heads out of the windows.

And as we got closer: A porter being questioned. Mrs. Potter sobbing next to a conductor.

My mother blanched. “Elizabeth, what’s happened?”

“Oh, Emma—“ she exclaimed before disappearing back into her handkerchief.

Then we saw the men carrying the sheet-covered stretcher. A mangled pair of shoes stuck out. I let out a quiet gasp as they passed by my line of sight. They were men’s shoes.

Pop caught Mother when she passed out.

And only then did I see the figure against a nearby tree, huddled under a Pullman blanket.

“Charlie?”

She didn’t look up. Her face was frozen.

I took her hand, which felt as stiff as brushwood. It did not react to my touch.

“Let’s go home, Charlie.”


	7. Chapter 7

On the morning of Uncle Charlie’s funeral, the first book I reached for was the family Bible. My mother, woozy from fatigue and tears, woke me up and asked me to read the 23rd Psalm to her. To prepare herself, I think, so she wouldn’t fall apart during the church service. I did as she asked, but I couldn’t help but make a few mental margin notes:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

Not anymore, anyway.

“For thou art with me: Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

If only.

Still, I suppose it was comforting to hear the minister echo those words at the service, if only by way of familiarity. It made things feel normal, or close enough. But I don’t think it had the same effect on Charlie.

She stood at the back of the church. Even a narrow escape from death couldn’t shake the starch out of her skirt, somehow. Detective Graham was with her. I saw him put his hand on top of hers.

“Look at her—throwing herself at him! What a fine time for that,” muttered Catherine, whose friendship with Charlie didn’t keep her from a backbiting sort of envy that put mine to shame.

Feeling a surge of loyalty, I turned around.

"Shhh!"

The church gave us a dandy funeral luncheon—potato salad, casseroles, the works. A listless Charlie picked at her plate. Grief often sapped people’s appetites, I noticed. It happened that way in books. But I decided that Uncle Charlie wasn’t worth wasting away over. Mrs. Whittier's famed peach pie was calling again, and I proceeded to wolf down a second helping.

Still, as the procession wound its way back toward our street, the prevailing atmosphere of gloom got to me. Even as there was something more urgent on my mind, too.

I tried to get Charlie’s attention, but Mother and Pop kept ushering me away.

“She’s had a dreadful shock, dear,” Mother said.

And how, I thought. But not in the way you think.

“Listen, Ann. Charlie actually saw what happened to your uncle,” Pop added. “That’s a terrible thing for a girl to see. We ought to let her be for a while, don't you think?”

Mother let out a teary shudder at the thought of it.

“Yes, Pop,” I said, though I had good reason to believe that something more had happened. There were certain facts that had been staring me in the face that morning, when Charlie and I were getting ready for the funeral. And they had been on my mind ever since.

“You’d better let her stay in your room one more night, Ann,” he continued. “No sense making her move her things now.”

“All right,” I said.

“Just don’t bother her too much. Remember.”

I nodded. They were trying. I could see that.

But I was getting impatient. Angry, even. Enough with all this reverent talk of my uncle, I thought. Enough with these pleas for me to stay silent. I knew what Charles Oakley really was. I’d had enough of pretending otherwise. And there was no longer any point in keeping that fact from the only other person shared that knowledge, and had been made to suffer for it.

As Charlie and I got ready for bed, I decided to lay my cards on the table.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” I announced to Charlie, who sat in front of the mirror.

No response. I studied her blank expression in the reflection.

“I said, I’m glad he’s dead.”

“You shouldn't say things like that, Ann.” Her voice was low, mechanical.

“I never say anything that isn’t true.”

Charlie’s head whipped around to me.

“Do you want Mother to hear you?” she whispered through clenched teeth.

“Maybe I do,” I retorted.

“Ann, will you be quiet?” Charlie got up. Her eyes were wide with alarm.

“You want to know why?”

“Ann, so help me, I won’t stand for any more of—“

But my voice, raw, immature, and untethered by Charlie's years of careful modulation, easily overpowered hers.

“ _Because you've got bruises on your neck, THAT's why!_ ”

Soon after that outburst, we heard the thumping of feet on the hall stairs. Charlie looked at the door in horror. Her hands flew to her throat.

I dialed down to a forceful whisper. “And if things had turned out differently, it’d be you in that coffin instead of Uncle Charlie. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

That brief look of feral agony I got in response chastened me a little. I hadn’t meant to hurt her. She’d been hurt enough already.

Mother flung open the door.

“What’s happened? Are you children all right?”

“Fine, Mother,” we replied in unison, forgetting the confrontation.

“Well, don’t shout so, either of you,” she said. “My nerves can’t stand it right now.”

“Yes, Mother.”

She shut the door. Charlie and I glanced at each other.

And, believe it or not, we laughed. A mirthless sort of laughter, mind you. But one that finally let us both acknowledge the situation's grim absurdity.

Not long after, though, Charlie drew a sharp breath and ran over to the mirror. “Oh, Ann. Do you think anyone else noticed?”

I looked over the one greenish cloudburst that insisted on itself through her face powder.

“Nah, I don’t think so.”

“I tried to cover it up.”

“Honest, Charlie. I’m sure nobody noticed. Nobody notices anything around here.”

She looked back at me. Her face started to crumple.

“Ann, I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“You shouldn’t know about this. I tried so hard not to involve you or Roger in this horrible mess.”

“Well, don’t worry about Roger,” I said. “He’s just as much of a dope as ever.”

“Ann—“

“Well, he is!”

I folded my arms.

“And anyway, I’m glad I know. I can’t help it. If there’s a killer loose and sleeping in the room next to mine, I like to be aware of it.”

I hesitated.

“Because—because you’re not the first person he tried to kill, are you?”

She sat down and allowed herself a pained blink before responding.

“No, dear.”

“Were there many of them?”

“Enough.”

I shook my head and then began to unbraid my hair.

“Boy, I’m glad I made it out alive.”

Charlie wrinkled her nose.

“You weren’t in all that much danger yourself, Ann. He was after older women, mostly.”

“Oh,” I thought back and realized that it fit the picture. “Why?”

She sighed—the kind of deep sigh that I imagine Atlas must have emitted when the world was foisted onto his shoulders.

“Their money. Of all the awful, sordid things, their money. They were rich and lonely old ladies, all of them. In fact“—she swallowed—“the papers had a name for him. The Merry Widow Murderer.”

“Golly,” I said. “It sounds like something out of that corny junk Pop reads.”

She responded with a weak smile. “Doesn’t it, though?”

On we went through the night.

“You think you’re going to marry Jack Graham?”

That question seemed to startle her a little.

“Oh. Well, I suppose I will.”

“You don’t sound very excited.”

“I’ve had enough excitement for one week, thanks. He knows I need time.”

“He’s a pretty good egg, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Ann. Yes, he is.”

I pick very strange moments to think back on as the happiest in my life. And I must say, this was one of them. Because, well, there we were, Charlie and I. More like sisters than we’d ever been. I felt terribly grown-up to be able to talk to her that way—like a real, honest-to-goodness confidante. Of course, the topic under discussion was far from a happy one. But to be able to talk about it freely gave me a heady sort of pleasure. One I can still feel in my bones.

I didn’t even realize that I’d nodded off until a jumplike spasm jarred me awake. I looked up to see that I had fallen asleep on Charlie’s shoulder.

“Sorry. I’ll get up,” I said, rubbing my eyes under my glasses.

“No, no,” she put her hand on my head. “It’s all right.”

“You sure?”

“Sure.”

I looked up at her.

“Y’know, I’ve just thought of something. Maybe I should stop calling you Charlie.”

She shifted. “What?”

“Well, I just thought after all this you might want to be plain old Charlotte from now on.”

I sat up and faced her.

“Or maybe something else. Like, I don’t know, Lotte. Yes, Lotte, like Lotte Lenya! Say, that’d be a swell nickname, wouldn’t it?”

Charlie shut her eyes.

“That’s sweet of you, Ann,” she replied. “But it’s no use. I’m Charlie, and I’ll always be Charlie. He and I are one and the same.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “Why, that’s crazy talk!”

She shushed me urgently.

“But it is,” I whispered.

“I only wish it were. But we really are.”

Her bottom lip quivered a little.

“I—I’ve got blood on my hands, same as him.”

“Same as him,” I huffed. "That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, you know that? You were only acting in self-defense. Any judge or jury in America would say so.”

“I still did it. I still had it in me.”

“Anyone has it in him to save his skin,” I insisted.

“I don’t expect you to understand, Ann.”

“Well, I don’t.”

I guess I do a little more now, even though I still recognize her self-assessment as the poisonous fiction it is. But nothing would ever convince her otherwise.

It’ll come as no surprise when I say that I wish I’d never known Uncle Charlie. If I could have changed things somehow, I would have. No question. I would have spared my sister so much inner torment, and I'm sure I would have learned about the presence of evil in the world in my own sweet time.

Still, there were other, less regrettable effects as well. Chief among them was the fact that, while Charlie would remain beautiful, intelligent, kind, and beloved, that summer cured me of envying her. I now knew my sister too well for that. I would remember Uncle Charlie's visit for the rest of my life, no doubt. But it did not define my life. It would define hers.


	8. Chapter 8

The morning of my eighth-grade graduation, my mother shyly presented me with—what else?—a book. It was a signed copy of Steinbeck’s _The Moon is Down_. Really, she and Pop couldn’t have picked a better present. It was unusually astute of them, and it forced me to look at them as something other than the out-of-touch provincials that I, in my teenage arrogance, presumed they were. And while the story of a small hamlet under siege did not prove to be one of Steinbeck’s classics, you can imagine what it meant to me then. This was, after all, only three years after that summer with Uncle Charlie. It still takes pride of place on my bookshelf, encased in glass.

I did not grow up to be a tall, leggy blonde, as Uncle Charlie envisioned. I topped out at five-foot two; my hair darkened into an indeterminate ashiness; I would remain forever bespectacled and moon-faced. And, alas, my baby fat never so much disappeared as followed me like a dumb, faithful puppy into adulthood.

There would be no boys panting for me, then. But that suited me fine. As I think I may have intimated before, I discovered that I wasn’t much interested in them, anyway.

Now, obviously, that was no easy thing to be in those days. I kept that part of my life under wraps until my parents passed on—Pop in 1962, Mother in ’63. And that was still well before the liberation movement really got underway, so I had to be careful whom I told.

Back then, people had all sorts of crackpot theories about how one became “deviant.” A common one was that a traumatic experience in a girl’s youth would make her swear off the male sex for life. I suspect that, had anyone outside the family known about Uncle Charlie, they’d have named him the culprit.

I suppose I’ve no need to say this now, but he most certainly wasn’t. The seeds of who I was to become had been planted early on, before Uncle Charlie’s visit and well before I’d experienced any real desire for anyone. The fascination with Veronica Lake, for example. My stated intention of marrying a librarian when the only librarians I’d ever known were women. The signs were there, had people bothered to look. I suppose, though, that if the good citizens of Santa Rosa had failed to spot the serial killer in their midst, they should be forgiven for overlooking a homegrown lesbian. Because that’s what I was, and Uncle Charlie had nothing to do with it.

But I will say this: I still derive _enormous_ satisfaction from the fact that I turned out nothing like he said I would. The man who thought he knew people better than they knew themselves turned out to have no special powers of perception after all.  

I wound up making my home in San Francisco—my partner Jean and I, both among the first Daughters of Bilitis, now count ourselves among the Castro’s old guard. My life has been a difficult one at times. But it is my own. I am my own person. To quote Whitman, I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

So, nuts to you, Uncle Charlie, as my eleven-year-old self might have said (and I think she still lives within me somewhere).

The irony is that, according to how most people thought at the time, Charlie looked as if she had the happier life. She took the straight and narrow path, hitting all the expected stops along the way.

She married Jack four months after the funeral. I suspect she’d have preferred to wait longer—she was still only 18, after all—but I'm sure she felt she had to. By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, she and Jack knew they didn't have much time.

After the war, they moved to Rosemont, a little town east of Sacramento, where Jack found a job with the California State Police. They bought a one-level house in a cul-de-sac. A newer construction. No rickety back stairs. Safe, safe, safe.

And then came the children, Jack, Jr., Joey, and Emma-Grace. Darlings, one and all. I became their “Aunt Enna,” the name two-year-old Jack gave me when he proved unable to say, “Aunt Annie.” It stuck. That’s what they still call me.

And Charlie was a good mother. A good wife. The kind of person that other women in the neighborhood would greet with the phrase, “You’re looking well today.”

No doubt about it. She put up a marvelous front.

One moment stands out in my memory. It was the summer of 1965, and I was paying them a visit. “We won’t hear of it,” Charlie insisted when I said I would stay in a hotel. They put me up in Joey’s room while he doubled up with his brother.

That’s how I came to be there the night of the broadcast from Cam Ne.

I walked into the living room with a cup of coffee.

“Mom, what’s that soldier doing with his cigarette lighter?” Joey asked.

“Hey, it's a Zippo," said Jack Jr. "Dad, didn't you say you once—."

“Go to your room, both of you,” Charlie ordered, her eyes still glued to the screen.

“But Mom—“

“I said, go to your room!” Her sudden eruption startled us all.

The boys skittered away.

Charlie, stricken with remorse over that rare unwarranted loss of temper, turned back to the set.

“Oh, isn’t it horrible?” she said under her breath as we watched them torch yet another villager’s house.

“And to think they’re broadcasting it for the world to see,” Jack shook his head. “The work of a few bad apples, that’s all. I’m telling you, a few bad apples.”

I couldn’t help but speak up. “Excuse me? Jack, how can you even begin to dismiss a thing like that?”

“Come now, Ann. War’s a dirty business.”

“So we can just throw out the Geneva Convention, then?”

“It’s a search-and-destroy mission. How do you expect--”

“Oh sure, destroy some old woman’s hut. _That’s_ the road to victory.”

 “For Christ’s sake, Ann, people who haven’t seen war don’t understand these things.”

“Not this, again,” breathed Charlie.

“I understand plenty,” I said. “I understand that we’ve gotten ourselves in another pointless bloodbath that those pinheads in Washington don’t even have the guts to _call_ a war!”

“I suppose you’d rather have the Communists run roughshod over the world—“

“Jack,” said Charlie.

“—just so we can paint a little halo over our heads.”

“And you’d rather have us killing babies just to—“

“ _Stop it, both of you!_ ” Charlie howled at us.

Then she sat down and buried her face in her hands. The closing words of the report filled the ensuing silence:

“This is Morley Safer, CBS News, near the village of Cam Ne.”

“It really is a foul sty,” she said in a shaky whisper.

“What?”

She looked up. “I said, the world really is a foul sty. And getting worse by the minute.”

And just like that, Jack and I, the only two people left who knew exactly who put that idea in her head, became a united front.

“Charlie, don’t talk like that,” I said. “Please. What’s going on in Vietnam is awful, but it isn’t the whole world.”

“She’s right, darling,” said Jack as he put his arms around her. “The world is what we make it. And we’ve got too many decent people in it for it all to go to pot.”

Charlie freed herself from his embrace and ran to the kitchen.

I followed her in.

“I’m sure the dishes can wait.”

“They can’t. Not for me,” she said. “Can’t have bugs around here. It’s the last thing I need. Can’t have bugs. The kids—”

But it wasn’t long before her furious scrubbing ceased. She steadied herself against the counter.

“You know I loved him, don’t you?”

“Him? I—“

She looked me in the eye. “Yes, him.”

I sighed. “You didn’t really love _him_ , Charlie. You loved the idea of him. The sophisticated uncle who came to shake us all up. That’s what you loved.”

Her gaze grew withering.

“And who are you to tell me that? Who are you to tell me whom I’m supposed to love and how? You, of all people!”

Well, you can imagine how that felt. It hurt all the more because, for the most part, she’d proven to be a great bastion of support. Very few people were as wonderfully accepting as she was when I told her about Jean—“Honest, Ann, I’m just glad you’ve found someone who’s makes you happy.”—and I'd been grateful for it. (Whereas Roger—oh, but don’t get me started on Roger.)

I think that’s the only time I ever felt like slapping her. I stopped myself, of course. But there was no way I was going to stop myself from telling her off.

“Make one more crack like that, Charlie, and I promise I won’t ever speak to you again. Do you hear me? I won’t stand for you using my life to draw such a hideous false equivalence.”

“And I won’t stand for you pretending to know how I feel!” she exclaimed with tears in her eyes. “Because you don’t know. You don’t know at all.”

I left the kitchen.

A long, restless night followed—and not just for me, I discovered, once I stumbled into the living room the next morning. A low grumble from the direction of the sofa caught my attention.

I walked over.

“Jack?”

“She wanted to be left alone.”

“Oh, I see.” I sat on the armchair beside him. His face was peppered with stubble.

“She offered to take the couch. But even if chivalry is dead, I’ll be damned if I’m going to shovel dirt in its grave.”

Poor Jack. We had our political differences, and he his paternalistic arrogance, at times. But I couldn’t help but feel for him. He was with the woman he loved, but he’d only met her because of the very thing that continued to chase her into dark corners. Without his interference, she might have remained in blissful ignorance about her uncle. Instead, she became his target. And I could tell that Jack continued to beat himself up about that. About not being able to rescue her, then or now.

“And I’ll tell you another thing,” he sat up and pointed to the doorway behind me. “There wasn’t one thing said in that kitchen last night that she hasn’t told me herself, many times. Not one thing.”

I winced. “Oh, Jack, I’m—“

“I’m not angling for sympathy. I hope you don't think that.”

“Of course not.”

“I’m just grateful that whenever that subject comes up, she always uses the word ‘loved’ in the past tense. But I’m telling you, that’s a hell of a thing to be grateful for.”

“Jack, have—have you ever brought up the subject of analysis?”

He craned his neck toward the ceiling and rubbed it. “She won’t. She says she couldn’t bear to have anyone else know, even in confidence.”

We sat for a while, as the first pale shafts of sunlight crept into the room. Neither of us looked at each other, but I felt a strange sort of camaraderie with him—the kind, I suppose, that a weary nurse and doctor might feel after a long night in an E.R.

“Well, I’d better get packing,” I said as I got up.

“Right,” said Jack.

He was there on the driveway as I got into my car. Charlie was still sleeping; the kids, too. He motioned for me to roll down my window:

“You’ll come back soon, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Bring Jean too, if you want. If the kids ask, we’ll just say she’s a friend.”

I smiled weakly. “Thanks, but Jean’s awfully busy these days.” In truth, I don’t think either of us wanted to be forced into that sort of pretense.

Jack put his hands in his pockets. “Well, just don’t be a stranger, all right?”

“I won’t.”

I drove off.

And I wasn’t. I didn’t always have time to drive up to Sacramento, of course, but at least I never skimped on phone calls. Neither did Charlie. Especially not when October rolled around.

Why October? Because that was the month of Santa Rosa Hospital’s annual fundraising appeal. Each year, Charlie and I would get letters asking us to help continue the wonderful work started by our uncle for the children of Sonoma County.

That’s because, strange as it may seem, Uncle Charlie’s check to the hospital did not bounce. Money stolen from those strangled widows really did help fund a new children’s wing, though it wound up being named after a local maker of cut-rate wine instead.

It still baffles me. Had there been some shred of decency left in Charles Oakley the day he died? Or was it something else? Could he have been driven by a brutal, unholy sort of pragmatism? I could easily see him regarding himself as a force of nature, one with a divine mandate to draw blood from the old to nourish the young. He’d had that kind of ego, I think. And I’m sure that even the gentlest reminder that he was not the ultimate arbiter of human worth wouldn’t have been taken kindly, to say the least.

Still, thanks to him broken bones were mended, tonsils removed. And sugar cubes and shots administered, as young mothers were now spared the anxieties that plagued our parents and generations before them.

When the letters came in the mail each year, Charlie would call from a phone booth—she still wanted to keep this from her children—and we would commiserate. But also laugh a little. There was something pretty funny about being asked to live up to Uncle Charlie’s example, after all.

“Well, are you donating, Ann?”

“Sorry. I don’t think my body count’s high enough this year. Maybe next.”

And it would make her laugh. It made me happy that it did.

I also hasten to add that Charlie did not spend her life tucked away in misery. Her kids grew up. All three went to college—a first for the Newton side. Jack, Jr. went to U.C. Davis, Joey to Sac State. And then came even better news, when little Emma-Grace received a scholarship to study biology at Stanford.

“Charlie! For heaven’s sake, will you pipe down?” I shouted in vain when she called with the news. “You're worse than Mother! I'm not getting any of this!”

“What’s going on?” asked Jean.

“Oh nothing, “ I deadpanned. “My sister’s just trying to blow the end off our receiver, that’s all.”

And after Charlie calmed down:

"Oh Ann, can you believe it? Would you have dreamed in a million years that I'd be the mother of a kid like that?"

"Charlie, _you_ were a kid like that." 

"Oh, quit fooling," she laughed. 

I wasn't. I'm sure that much is clear.

But did Aunt Enna attend the block party they gave in her niece’s honor? You bet she did.

Life went on. Charlie and Jack’s marriage grew strained over time, but they stuck with it. Jean and I lost friends to the epidemic in those dark years, and we treasured the ones that were spared. But we also found the world outside our circle grow more welcoming. Our families no longer kept the fact of our relationship from the children—nor the grandchildren, either.

And we all grew old.

It all went on like that—as decent an approximation of normal life as any of us could manage—until June of 1995. That’s when Jack Graham, aged 79, died of a heart attack. And that’s when my perfect sister, aged 72 and in seemingly perfect health, fell perfectly silent.


	9. Chapter 9

“Akinesia and Adult-onset Mutism: A Comprehensive Survey of Recent Literature and Overview of Known Neuropsychiatric Causes” by R. Kazanjian and C. Jeffries.

How’s that for reading material?

It was part of the thick packet Jack, Jr. gave me when I met him for lunch. He was trying to learn as much as possible about what had happened to his mother, and we were going through the journal articles he’d found.

“Good lord, Jack. Where did you find all this?”

His lopsided smile betrayed a touch of ribbing condescension. “The Internet, Aunt Enna. Remember?”

I returned the smile sheepishly. “Well, you’ll forgive your creaky old auntie, won't you? I remember when you’d have had to go to every college library in the state for what you’ve got here.”

I know one isn’t supposed to play favorites like this. But among Charlie’s kids, Jack was mine. It’s surprising, really. You’d think it would have been brilliant, headstrong Emma-Grace, who was then away doing fieldwork in Borneo, or Joey, a forlorn fellow middle child. And as I’ve said, I love them all.

But Jack, well, he's special. I love how his large build conceals an intelligent, questing spirit that few think to look for. Sensitive, too, especially about his mother. I think on some level he'd always known that there was something terrible in her past. And much like Charlie was with our own mother, he felt protective. He wanted nothing more than to ease her burden and, perhaps on a subconscious level, to prove to her that not all forms of love have a rancid aftertaste.

“The doctors don’t think it’s Alzheimer’s, at least,” he said. “Problem is, they’re still not sure what it could be. This kind of thing doesn’t ordinarily happen in isolation, you see. She's alert. Still takes care of herself. Looks after the house and everything. She just doesn’t talk.”

“Does she get out much?” I asked.

He fiddled with his napkin.

“No. I guess the whole situation embarrasses her a little. In any case, we’ve hired a live-in nurse for her. It gives us some peace of mind, if nothing else.”

“I’m sure. But that has to be awfully expensive, Jack. Are you able to manage it all right?”

He looked surprised for a second. Then he shook his head.

“I guess we never told you, did we?”

“Tell me what?”

Jack put down his cup of coffee.

“Oh boy, let’s see. Now, I know you and my father didn’t always see eye-to-eye on things—“

“Jack—“

“—but really, he wasn’t as backward as you think. You remember how he liked to tinker, right? That transistor radio he helped us build? Well, he also liked to read up on electronics. He started writing to the folks at Bell Labs and elsewhere, asking them questions—Mom was convinced they thought he was a kook. And she wasn’t too thrilled when he started playing around with his pension money, either. But, well, how can I put this? His decisions turned out to be very, very prudent.”

“Oh?”

“First it was semiconductors, then software—”

“Jack, dear, what are you getting at?”

“Only that paying for Mom’s nurse isn’t a problem.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it, anyway.”

The waitress brought us the check. Jack swiped it before I was able to look.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked, craning my neck to see it.

He smiled and hid it from view. “Not a thing.”

“Jack—“

“I mean it.”

“For heaven’s sake, Jack.”

“Aunt Enna,” he said. “When you and your siblings stand to inherit the better part of $5 million—“

I spat out the last of my coffee.

“—you can afford to pick up the odd check.”

He laughed.

“I told you there was nothing to worry about,” he said as we left for Charlie’s house.

So he thought, anyway. But in fact, I couldn’t help but accept the news of this windfall with mixed feelings. You see, I had a theory of why Charlie had lost the ability to speak. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, of course. That had gotten me in trouble before. But this news seemed be more evidence for it. I had reason to believe that Charlie did not relish the prospect of being a wealthy widow.

We got to the house and were greeted by the nurse, a reedy, impossibly young woman with an accent that I didn’t recognize. We then entered Charlie’s room, where she was sitting by the windowsill.

For someone who’d been keeping her family up nights with worry, I must say she looked wonderful. Her frame had shrunk to a somehow even more finely wrought delicacy. Her white hair made perfect, soft curls around her head, and whatever wrinkles she had seemed to have been etched onto her face by Dürer. Her jawline remained firm, with none of the jowliness that, to my dismay, mine was now exhibiting. She looked over and acknowledged our presence bashfully.

“Your sister’s come to visit you, Mrs. Graham,” the nurse shouted.

I glared at her. “She hasn’t gone deaf, you know.”

“Aunt Enna—“ Jack said reproachfully.

“All right, I’m sorry.”

I sat down beside Charlie.

“I’ve brought you something,” I said, reaching into my bag. “I remember you once saying you lost your copy of _Sense and Sensibility_. This is a version in large print.”

I detected a hint of a raised eyebrow. I smiled.

“Oh come on, Charlie. There’s no need to be vain about it. Believe me, I need large print these days, too.”

“She loves Jane Austen,” I announced to the others.

“Miss Newton—”

“Ms., if you don’t mind.”

“Ms. Newton, I am afraid Mrs. Graham does not read very much these days,” the nurse said gently.

She and Jack then began talking—about the weather, about current events, about television. The usual things. I was expected to join in and did so with a few halfhearted remarks. But my focus was on Charlie.

She listened to our conversation but evidently grew bored with it (small wonder). She stared out the window for a while. Then she looked at the book in her hands. She sat and began running her fingers over the embossed letters on the cover. Grasping for her reading glasses, she leaned back against the sofa and opened it. A furtive smile spread across her face as she turned the pages.

I gestured toward her for the benefit of the others.

“Doesn’t read much these days, you say?” I noted with an undisguised air of triumph.

“Well, she hadn’t until now. I am sure of that,” the nurse said defensively.

Jack grinned. “Aunt Enna has that effect on people.”

“Yes, and you know what? I think there should be more books around here,” I said. “Crossword puzzles, anything. But we’ve got to make sure she keeps her mind active.”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed. Even in her situation, she apparently did not like being spoken about as if she weren’t there. I was happy to see that. In fact, in my mind that clinched it. Charlie had lost her voice; she hadn’t lost herself.

I cleared my throat. “I would like to speak to her alone, please.”

“But Ms. Newton—“ the nurse said.

I turned to Jack. “I would appreciate it.”

“Of course,” he said. He and the nurse left.

I returned to Charlie.

“It’s good to see you again.”

She was looking at me quizzically. I took a deep breath.

“Charlie, this is about him, isn’t it?”

She still looked confused. I couldn’t blame her. I tried again.

“All right. I could be wrong. But something tells me that this has something to do with Uncle Charlie. You’re now the same age and in the same position as his victims. It’s scaring the hell out of you, and that’s why you’ve shut down.”

I paused.

“Isn’t it?”

In the summer of 1941, for a brief period of time, my sister believed in telepathy. She thought she had it with Uncle Charlie, at first. But when she began to find out who he really was, she realized that he was operating on a wavelength that she could never fully fathom.

It won’t surprise you to know that I have never believed in mental telepathy. I thought it was stupid. I still do. But I do believe in mental telegraphy—that is, that a pair of particularly expressive eyes can telegraph exactly what a person is thinking.

And the look I was getting at that moment from Charlie spoke volumes.

I shifted closer to her.

“Charlie—“

She looked at the floor.

“Charlie!” I took her face in my hands. She grabbed my wrists but did not try to pull them away.

“Listen to me,” I said. “Our uncle is dead. He has been dead for more than fifty years. You know that.”

 _“But there are others like him.”_ Her eyes bored into mine.

“You’ve got people here with you,” I said. “Jack, your nurse, Joey. Emma-Grace will be back home in August. Even when I’m not here, I’m only a phone call away. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

_“You can’t be sure of that.”_

I held my head for a moment before springing from the couch.

“All right. You got me. You got me—no one’s ever sure. But you do yourself no favors by closing yourself off from the world. Maybe if the others knew what was really going on—“

 _“Don’t you dare.”_ Her gaze was now fierce.

I felt my throat constrict. “Then—then I don’t know what I can say. I really don’t.”

Charlie grew stony-faced. Her eyes returned to the floor.

That, I supposed, was my exit cue. I picked up my bag and walked to the door. I felt helpless and angry and defeated and unable to live in my own skin. But before leaving, I couldn’t stop myself from saying what came out next.

“He's not worth all of this, Charlie. He never was!”

And then, of course, I turned to find myself face-to-face with Jack. 

I ran out the front door toward my car. He caught up and grabbed my arm.

“Aunt Enna.”

“Jack, please—“

“Aunt Enna!” he shouted.

“Now look here. I know you didn’t think much of my father. I can’t help that. But I don’t know what you hope to achieve by disparaging him in front of Mom. Do you think that’s somehow going to make her feel better? To say good riddance?”

“No, Jack. Please, I—“

I shut my eyes. He'd completely misapprehended the situation, but I didn't know how to explain without revealing everything.

“No, I don’t.”

“Then, I don’t want to hear another word. I’ve had just about enough, and so has Mom.”

I wonder what would have happened if I’d told him the whole truth then. That question was to plague me for a long time, but the point is, I didn’t. He returned to the house. I pulled out of the driveway.

On the road, I thought back to the night after Uncle Charlie’s funeral:

“All right, I won’t tell Mother,” I’d said. “But what about Pop? Maybe he’d be able to—“

“No!” Charlie exclaimed.

“No,” she repeated quietly. “Please, Ann. I’d rather die than have anyone else know. I mean it. You’ve got to promise me you won’t tell.”

I agreed. And throughout most of my life, I treated it as a sacred oath, against my better judgment. Was it merely the impassioned hyperbole of an 18-year-old girl? Regardless, few 18-year-olds have ever had to endure something like that.

Six months after that visit, I received a call. Charlie was in the hospital. She'd collapsed. The doctor said it was just a little dehydration, but her nurse seemed less sanguine. She pulled us aside and told us that she’d been having trouble getting her to eat. She apologized and apologized, but I knew she wasn’t to blame.

“She’s stable,” a ragged-looking Jack announced to us in the waiting room, “But I—" he struggled to get the words out "—I get the feeling it’s all downhill from here.”

We sat without speaking.

“She misses Dad,” said Joey.

Emma-Grace shot him a dark glance. “Misses him? Joe, I don't know what you think a happy marriage looks like, but trust me, that wasn't it.”

“Em!”

“You know it as well as I do. Who knows what was keeping them together? Inertia, maybe.”

“Shut up, Em!” a distraught Joey snapped.

“Both of you, stop it,” said Jack.

I said nothing. Charlie’s words were ringing in my ears. “I’d rather die than have anyone else know,” she’d said. Except now, I feared, it was simply, “I’d rather die.”

Emma-Grace put her head against my shoulder.

“I’m not ready for this, Aunt Enna. It’s too soon.”

I nodded.

I waited her out. Joey, too. I knew Jack would be the last one there.

Finally, he announced that he was going home.

“Jack,” I said, “Let’s have some coffee first.”

“Really, Aunt Enna, I’d love to, but Carmen and the kids—“

"Fifteen minutes, tops,” I insisted. “Besides, we could both use something for the drive home.”

As we sat with our coffee:

“Jack, you're aware that your mother’s troubles are probably psychological, aren't you?”

“Of course,” he said. “We found a grief counselor for her, but there wasn’t much he could do when—“

“This isn’t about your father, Jack. Well, not exactly, anyway.”

He squinted at me. “What, then?”

I stared into my cup.

“Jack, do you know anything about how your parents met?”

He sighed, fatigued and likely more than a little impatient to get home.

“Well, yes, of course. Dad met Mom before the war, when he was in Santa Rosa working on a case.”

I kept my eyes down.

“Do you know anything about that case? How she was involved? How it almost killed her?"

His cup fell onto the table, stopping just short of spilling its remaining contents. He struggled to right it again before his eyes shot back to me.

“I didn’t think so,” I said.

And then I told him everything he needed to know. Because he needed to know.

He agreed to tell the doctor so they could arrange for Charlie to see someone. He asked me to come along, but I said I wanted to go home.

“Oh Jack, I know how craven that must sound. But I’m going to have to explain myself, and I’ll be able to do it much better in writing. Please.”

“It’s all right. I understand.”

I placed my hand on his. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t so understanding, Jack. It can’t be good for you.”

On the drive back, I started mentally composing that letter to Charlie. I racked my brain looking for the right and resonant words. But I soon discovered, as I should have known, that certain resonances are dangerous. They make you buckle and sway and shake loose from your foundations. Before I knew it, my car had slipped off the road and into some nearby weeds. The sound of their thicket crunch snapped me back to attention.

I shut off the engine and rested my head against the steering wheel. I was all right, but I knew I couldn’t make it all the way back to the city. I had to stop somewhere for the night.

And then I experienced a strange flight of fancy. Maybe—maybe it could be in Santa Rosa. Maybe I could check into a hotel and write the letter to her there. Maybe even the Occidental—wouldn’t Charlie get a kick out of that, I thought, seeing a letter written to her on the stationery of that grand old place?

But I quickly came to my senses. No, I could not stay in Santa Rosa. It was not close by, nor was it remotely on the way home. It wasn’t even our hometown anymore: It was a city of 100,000 people, with fashionable wine-country tourists milling in and out every day. And they weren’t staying at the Occidental, because there was no Occidental, because it and the courthouse and my father’s bank and our old house were all destroyed back in 1969.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate earthquakes?

I drove to the nearest town. I checked into a motel, a familiar budget chain. Nondescript, sterile, but clean and comfortable. I called Jean, who asked if I was all right. I said I was, which wasn’t entirely a lie. She said she loved me. I said I loved her. I hung up. I found my room. I started writing. I would sign the letter the next day, after looking it over and making sure I’d said exactly what I wanted to say. (I didn’t—not exactly—does anyone ever?)

But here's how I left it that night:

 

 

> Dear Charlie,
> 
> By the time you read this, if you do read this, it’ll be clear to you that your secret has been betrayed. And you’ll know that only one person could have done it. You might be angry at me right now. If you are, I’m glad. It means you’re still alive. In fact, I give you full license to call me every name in the book. (If you want a refresher course on your options, ask the kids. You raised them right, Charlie, but there was no way you could have kept them in a bubble through middle age.)
> 
> I’m still holding out hope that it isn’t too late. But at this point, after so many years, can anyone loosen Uncle Charlie’s stranglehold on you? I know I couldn’t, though I tried. So did Jack.
> 
> His namesake is still convinced that we despised each other, by the way. I suppose it must have seemed that way to him, given our bickering over the dinner table. But whatever our difference in opinions, we shared one desire above all: to see you finally happy. And I think we both worried that it was a pipe dream. It might be. But you'd know better than I would.
> 
> Oh Charlie, I so wish you didn’t see the world through the eyes that our uncle gave you—ones that push all of its threats and obscenities into the foreground. It’s a blinkered view, Charlie. Can’t you see that? The world is a place full of oceans and trash heaps and redwoods and concrete and small-minded people and those who eventually learn. It’s never just one thing. No one person can see it whole.
> 
> And if I ever let myself think of the world as a foul sty, like he said it was, I wouldn’t have lived to see it improve. Because it has for me. You can see that, can’t you? And I’m not the only one. The world gets better; it gets worse; it keeps changing. And in its own strange and sometimes confounding way, it’s beautiful for it.
> 
> It brought you children and grandchildren. They’re all aching to hear your voice again. I am, too.
> 
> Oh Charlie, you stinker, I wish you’d come back.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Phew! This turned into quite a project, didn't it?
> 
> Initially, I just wanted to explore Ann's perspective a little. The fact that she showed signs of wariness around Uncle Charlie--to the point of not wanting to sit next to him at the dinner table--made me think she knew something was up. But as I kept writing, the story began to migrate toward some bigger questions: the nature of evil, the stubborn persistence of a traumatic experience, and the special horror that comes from witnessing all of this in someone you care about and finding yourself unable to help.
> 
> Wow. Okay. Heavy stuff, I know. I hope I've also made it enjoyable. Ann's a relatively minor character, but she speaks in a distinctive voice--witty, perhaps a little bratty, but very much independent and self-possessed. I hope that comes across, too.


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